“Once the proceedings against her are completed according to law, we will consider (negotiations) depending on her response,” Min Aung Hlaing said in a statement.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991, was arrested in the February 1, 2021 military coup that overthrew her government and ended a brief period of democracy in Burma.
She has since been sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison on a host of charges and faces decades more in prison if convicted of other offenses in a closed trial before a military court.
Already sentenced to a total of eleven years in prison, she was sentenced on Monday to six additional years in prison for corruption charges.
Journalists were unable to attend the proceedings, his lawyers were unable to speak to the press and the junta gave no indication of when his trials would end.
In July, a spokesman for the junta told AFP that it was not “impossible” for the military regime to engage in dialogue with Suu Kyi. “We cannot say that (negotiations with Suu Kyi) are impossible,” said Zaw Min Tun.
This week, UN Special Envoy Noeleen Heyzer made her first trip to Burma since her appointment in October 2021 and met with Min Aung Hlaing and other junta officials.
She called for an end to all violence and the release of all political prisoners, and asked to be able to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in solitary confinement in a prison in the capital.
But she was unable to meet her and human rights organizations considered that there was little chance that her visit would persuade the military to engage in a dialogue with the opponents.
Suu Kyi remains a respected figure for her courageous opposition to a previous military dictatorship, although her international reputation has suffered since she ruled the country in a power-sharing arrangement with the generals following her party’s victory in National League for Democracy in the 2015 elections.
Opponents currently engaged in clashes with junta forces believe their movement should go further than that led by Suu Kyi decades ago.
Current dissidents claim their goal is to permanently uproot the military’s hold on the country’s political life.
Diplomatic efforts undertaken by the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which Burma is a member have so far failed to end the conflict.
In 2021, ASEAN had endorsed a “five-point consensus” calling for an end to violence and constructive dialogue, but the junta has largely ignored it.
More than 2,200 people have been killed and more than 15,000 arrested in the military’s crackdown on dissidents since the coup, according to a local human rights watchdog.
